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Old 07-28-2008, 01:32 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wagner
In line with that...

There is DEFINITELY harm in having too much engine oil. The most common problem is -- believe it or not -- lack of lubrication caused by low oil pressure. What happens is the crankshaft "whips" the oil in the oil pan into a foam. The foamed oil is then pushed through the lubrication system. The air bubbles causes a drop in oil pressure and less oil is delivered to moving parts. This results in increased wear, lower fuel economy, higher temperatures and generally just a Whole Lot Of Bad Things.

The action of the crankshaft whipping up the oil also robs the engine of some power; it takes effort to push the crankshaft through all that extra oil.
I completely agree with that. However, an oil line blowing as you described can't happen with low oil pressure.

Moreover, why I said that what he's describing isn't in line with low oil pressure is that if there's a low oil pressure condition, he isn't going suddenly start leaking oil; in fact, an oil leak won't result as an effect of that. The bearings would start to spin, and eventually the rotating assembly would sieze or the crank would crack in the most extreme condition.

The first thing to happen with oil pressure low enough to cause damage is spun bearings. If bearings are starting to spin, he'd hear knocking. However..if the oil was topped off too high, it wouldn't cause an acute loss of pressure. The knocking would've progressively gotten worse. What he described was that things went south extremely rapidly. Which means oil pressure became critically low very rapidly. -> Oil left the engine rapidly.
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